Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

Hurricane Sandy: What’s God Telling Us This Time?

Hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters are tragedies, of course, but there is one aspect of them that I find highly enjoyable: Keeping track of all the reasons why the wingnuts think God is punishing us by sending those terrible events our way. So let’s make a list:
The Worldnutdaily says that God punishes us every time we don’t kowtow completely to whatever the right wing in Israel demands of us:

Journalist and White House correspondent William Koenig explained to WND that some of the United States’ most catastrophic storms and events have correlated closely with the nation’s God-defying attempts to divide the land of Israel.

“When we put pressure on Israel to divide their land, we have enormous, record-setting events, often within 24 hours,” Koenig told WND. “Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 – we have experienced over 90 record-setting, all-time events as we have acted against Israel. And the greater the pressure on Israel to ‘cooperate,’ the greater the catastrophe.”

Linda Marie Wall says the whole thing is aimed at the state of Vermont for ruling against Lisa Miller in her long legal battle to prevent her former partner from having visitation with the daughter they raised together before she suddenly decided that being a lesbian was evil:

I didn’t expect most of you to agree with my statement. But I tell you this the tragedy here is that a little six year old Christian girl and her born again Mother had to flee America in order to obey God’s Word.

And now a Minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ is facing imprisonment for helping protect a little child from being removed from her biological Christian Mother and turned over to a stranger.

Christians who loved and nurtured Lisa and Isabella through the six plus years are also being sued for obeying God’s Word. So look in the mirror and decide where your commitment is.

Vengeance is God’s and He does repay.

But always with incredibly bad aim. He wanted to get back at Vermont so he has to target the entire Eastern seaboard? A drone strike would be more accurate than that.

Hurricane Sandy is hitting 21 years to the day of the Perfect Storm of October 20, 1991. I write about this in my book as America Has Done to Israel. This was the day that President George Bush Sr. initiated the Madrid Peace Process to divide the land of Israel, including Jerusalem. America has been under God’s judgment since this event. Both of these hurricanes were cause by freakish weather patterns that came together to create

Twenty-one years breaks down to 7 x 3, which is a significant number with God. Three is perfection as the Godhead is three in one while seven is perfection.

It appears that God gave America 21 years to repent of interfering with His prophetic plan for Israel; however, it has gotten worse under all the presidents and especially Obama. Obama is 100 percent behind the Muslim Brotherhood which has vowed to destroy Israel and take Jerusalem. Both candidates are pro-homosexual and are behind the homosexual agenda. America is under political judgment and the church does not know it!

Booooring. Fred Phelps’ band of ghouls and assholes, meanwhile, is thrilled about it all and is praising God for all the death and destruction:

Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of Westboro pastor Fred Phelps, has spewed a series of tweets about Hurricane Sandy since the storm first brewed in the Caribbean last week. “God sent the whirlwind. #ThankGodForRighteousJudgment,” Phelps-Roper tweeted after deaths were announced in Cuba…

The Westboro heir described Hurricane Sandy as the “wrath from God hangs over NY and Doomed USA like a Sword or Damocles.” She also mentioned the Hawaii tsunami and a Nebraska wildfire as signs from God.

unitive and redemptive–reflecting two attributes of its Creator, the One whom our American founders called, “The Supreme Judge of the World.”

For those who have forgotten God–or, worse, who may be confused if they are God–this storm is an awesome reminder and a corrective measure. For those who know the One that controls the seas, it is an opportunity for awe and worship. Both outcomes are consistent with the purpose of judgment. This event is beyond our control–and that is a powerful way to learn who indeed is.

Of all the magic rituals that shamans have performed through the centuries to affect the natural world, it appears only gay sex actually works. Perhaps we should study this under controlled conditions. Can we determine exactly the location and strength of a storm by varying the frequency, type, and duration of the gay sex? We could end drought, perhaps even harness a whole new energy source!

Hurricane Sandy is hitting 21 years to the day of the Perfect Storm of October 20, 1991. […] This was the day that President George Bush Sr. initiated the Madrid Peace Process to divide the land of Israel, including Jerusalem.

Um, yesterday was the 28th. Now I know Sandy was plenty busy on the 20th, but it wasn’t punishing the US for anything then. Were Haiti and Cuba secretly the driving forces behind the Madrid Peace Process and they just let Dubya take the credit?

Teh Great Sky Faerie has extremely bad spacial and temporal aim. In this case it didn’t intend for there to be a superstorm on the Earth at all. It was intending to create a new cyclone on the fifth planet (the one that blew up to create the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter) several billion years ago.

Best current thinking is there never was such a fifth planet, so Teh Great Sky Faerie is probably taking history lessons from the BARD™ (Barton Ad-hoc Reality Distorter).

This morning my regional newspaper of record had a syndicated political cartoon showing Nature purposefully causing Sandy. Nature was pissed because climate change has been an avoided topic in this election season where Sandy was Nature’s way to get the topic debated. I bet even this storm won’t drive an impactful debate.

I was laughing my ass off last evening reading Anthony Watts site where he and his sheeple are getting their panties in a twist by Sandy. He was claiming people who understand climate science are defectively conflating weather with climate; that assertion should be nominated for projection event of the year.

We just don’t get God’s will. He’d rather a child have an evil, lying, manipulative, vindictive single mother, than one who cares about the child that happens to be gay.

There have certainly been other cases where the step parent won custody over the biological parent, when the biological parent is particularly awful. This case was no different, except it was between two women. The judge simply decided one of those two was so awful, that she should not get sole custody. And that was because of the mother’s conduct during the trial.

Twenty-one years breaks down to 7 x 3, which is a significant number with God. Three is perfection as the Godhead is three in one while seven is perfection.

He’s right, and all of you haters need to back off! 21 years does have great significance. For starters, it is the legal drinking age in the US. Maybe Sandy is just God’s way of reminding people born during the Perfect Storm, that it is time to get started.

@16 Humbling? More like empowering. If the governments of the world do not provide me with one meeeelyeon dollars, I will wreak havok with the awesome power of my disbelief! Do not attempt to stop me! Killing me will only cause me to believe absolutely nothing, making me more powerful than you can possibly imagine!

Normally, God sends his hurricanes to punish the conservative South. But now, just as Ohio starts trending toward Romney, God sends a hurricane that can reach all the way into Ohio. How effin’ often does that happen? Those who have ears, let them hear.

As someone else brought up on another website dealing with McTernan’s comments, isn’t it odd for a minister to believe in numerology? I always thought that was more of an occult or “New-Agey” practice, similar to tarot cards or fortune telling.

That’s how fundies read the bible, though. (The few who actually crack the damn thing open, anyway.) Scouring through the text to cut-and-paste their crazy-ass “end times prophesies” that are supposedly crystal clear from a “plain, literal” study of the text, show it’s all tea leaves and tarot cards and spell-casting and numerology.

But remember, it’s “Harry Potter” that’ll lead the kids to occultism.

Slacktivist’s analysis of the “Left Behind” books lays out how weird their particular approach to theology really is.

When Petula Clark sang, “Don’t sleep in the subway, darling, don’t stand in the pooring rain” in 1967 — it’s obviously a prediction of Hurricane Sandy! God is telling us literally not to sleep in the subway!

Hello, God sent superstorm Sandy …(If it really happened) to punish. To punish for the charge of ” Blasphemy to the Holy Spirit”. Yes that is the truth, it was a punishment. I can prove what I say simply by using a few passages from the New Testament and with simple numbers, show you people how the exact date of the storm 10/29/12 is in, and can be clearly seen in scripture…………………Here is how to see it…………..get a pencil or a pen…..next write down what I tell you to, then you can go on your own to the New Testament and find it……… There are 3 prominent places in the N.T. ( New Testament) Where Jesus warns about Blasphemy to the Holy Spirit, and describes the crime as an unforgivable sin..These 3 places are Luke 12:10….Mark 3:29…and Matthew 12:31-32. In Matthew he even goes to say anyone who even ” SPEAKS” against the Holy Spirit is guilty of the sin. Now take your writing instrument…Write the name LUKE 12:10, directly under it write Mark 3:29.so it should look like this >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Mark 03:29…using the numbers given to us we can clearly see the year 12: the month 10,and the date :29, standing for October 29, year 2012, also known as 10/29/12( the three obviously represents the Holy Spirit as the third person in the Holy Trinity) , October 29 2012 is the date Sandy crippled New Jersey…I find it very easy to see…..It is also very easy to see the last day the earth can continue to spin in space and time…It is also very easy to see,these are things that the big religious institutions don”t want to talk about …..so that they can continue to rape your minds and your bank accounts, I don’t
expect a response, but I know you all see it!!!! Oh, and when I say God I do mean” Jesus God”. That is just too obvious……The one who gave the warning…..Sent it !!!!!
good luck….Gary. P.S. is it not sad that we can easily tell such things, I wonder why the religious crowd… like the pope and the presidents of other religious parties did not warn us of such an obvious life taking monster storm.